Izzy Sapherson-Moralee was 22 years old, worked as an estate agent in Wimborne, Dorset, and began using ketamine during the 2020 lockdowns. Five years later, her body weighed 35 kilos. The drug had destroyed her bladder, and she was spending about 600 dollars a month on incontinence diapers just to be able to leave her house.
What makes this case clinically disturbing is the documented progression: ketamine causes irreversible chemical cystitis when use is chronic. The pain becomes constant, the bladder contracts, and the body — without fat or muscle — begins to waste away from the inside. Izzy made it to the hospital, but discharged herself two days before she died.
Her mother, Ann Moralee, had spent 18 months trying unsuccessfully to get medical help. She reported “missed opportunities” to coroner Brendan Allen during the inquest held in Bournemouth. Izzy had stopped trusting doctors after an experience she described as humiliating with a urologist at Salisbury District Hospital. In the United Kingdom, ketamine use has increased by more than 250% since 2015. Izzy is one of its most extreme and well-documented consequences.
